The University of Botswana and Statistics Botswana have signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate in a number of areas including training as well as provision of technical assistance during the design, conduct and analysis of various surveys and censuses.
The MoU was signed in Gaborone on June 26, 2018. Vice Chancellor, Professor David Norris signed on behalf of UB while Statistician General, Dr Burton Mguni, signed for Statistics Botswana. Speaking at the occasion, Professor Norris, said the signing of the MoU was not to mark the initiation of the collaboration but a renewal and formalisation of a long standing mutual relationship the two institutions had over the past years.
Professor Norris said the MoU would also energies and further leverage relation in ways that increased and optimised mutual benefit. He further stated that it would be beneficial not only in terms of staff access and experience of research but also in terms of enhancing quality of students training by offering real life experiences of participating in the conduct of surveys and working with real life primary data.
“We are excited about the prospect of enhanced and meaningful collaboration and expect that both parties will work diligently in the execution of the project and activities covered under the MoU,” said Professor Norris.
Earlier on, Dr Mguni, said signing the MoU indicated commitment to both the production of quality official’s statistics and statistical development in general. Dr Mguni also said it was important that statistical capacity building in the country be dependent upon an effective system that trained the required manpower to handle the entire gamut of statistics in a way statistics was supposed to be produced and used.
“Therefore, UB is a key player in this regard as it provides training, capacity building; also does research in the field of statistics and all other disciplines such as economics, environmental science and ICT that are critical for the production of statistics and resultant use of such statistics,” said Dr Mguni.